Sunday, July 29, 2012

Today was a gorgeous day and we spent the majority of it outside. Sue was in the garden trimming and harvesting what was ready. Well, this is a photo of that harvest. There are nine cucumbers, one beefsteak tomato, and a handful of cherry tomatoes.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

I was out on the deck taking pictures of reflections in water after the rain. Sue came out to join me and I took a few shots of her messing around posing like it was 1995. Most of them looked like goofy senior portrait pictures, but this one turned out really nice.

Friday, July 27, 2012

I discovered that today was National Scotch Day and my inspiration was born. My scotch of choice is Macallan. I wish I had something in the house a little more aged, but I will "suffer" through my bottle of 12 year. Enjoy your scotch of choice responsibly today. Cheers!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

These are the "back buttons" on my camera. I use the Focus Point Selection button all the time, yet I have never utilized the AE-Lock (*) or the AF-ON buttons. This past Saturday I configured my camera so I could use these and what a difference. I will probably rarely use the AE-Lock button, but the back button auto-focus is my new favorite feature on my camera.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Today was a brew day at Jim's house. Jim has guest posted on this blog several times and also has a studio in the basement of his home. I took my camera anticipating the chance to play around with his lighting setup. The first shot is Jim setting up the lighting and asking me to take a quick test shot. I actually like the way it turned out, so it made the cut for today's photos. The second shot is Jim showing me how his ring light works, and the third is my actual shot of the day. This is Jim's son Jameson. Jim asked him to model for me for a minute, and as you can see Jameson wasn't thrilled. Anyway a big thanks for letting me try out the lights!

Jonah has spent the last week at my mom's house. So starting last night and this weekend Jonah will be re-entering and conforming to our normal schedule. Detox from a week of fun at grandma's can be tough, but he seems to be doing just fine.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Last night I went out for drinks and dinner with some guys from work to talk about our upcoming brewfest. Trying to pick a date, a name, and what beers to brew was quite the challenge and tonights photo reflects one of our decisions. We are calling this The 10/20 Brewfest or something along that line. When I got home I moved the hands of the clock to 10:20 snapped a couple pictures and went to bed.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

This is Sue's friend Hillary. She came over for some dinner and beers. After dinner we went out to check out the garden and I was able to snag a photo of Hillary in a very expressive conversation with Sue.

Monday, July 16, 2012

I was playing with drops of water and leaves from my neighbors tree hoping to get her flowers in the drops. Well, as it turns out I got my house instead. If you look close or zoom in, you will see out house upside down in the drop.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Sue made one of my favorite dinners tonight. It is a cheese ravioli with roasted sweet potatoes (roasted in olive oil and thyme), and then topped with goat cheese. It is so good and deserved to be the photograph of the day.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

I went outside after lunch to clean up the mess from the trees, see Day 191. During my raking, I stunned a rather large toad. I actually thought I killed it since it did not move for over 15 minutes. After I was done raking, I placed my rake over the toad trapping it so I could get my camera. When I returned the toad was attempting to escape. I was able to get a few shots before he hopped away.

I normally post Jim's guest posts separately. Since these two photos go together I decided to make this one post.

Jim was taking pictures of his hops that are growing in his backyard when a fly landed on a leaf of the hop plant.

Friday, July 13, 2012

We were over at the Green's house tonight for dinner. Outside they have all kinds of flowers and this one caught my eye. I think because to me it looks like a mini-sunflower. I have no idea what it really is called but I like the way it looks.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

I was watching the replay of the Tour de France trying to figure out what I was going to take a photo of tonight. Then I spotted Sue's glass of water that was just starting to form some condensation, so I got setup and took some shots.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

So when people see this photograph they will fall into one of two categories. The first are like me and will easily recognize the spotted pages, nice binding, and thumb cutouts for easy access to different parts of the book. This will recognize this as a dictionary because we relied on it as our pre-computer form of spell check. The second group will have no idea what this book is and may have only seen it in their grandparents bookcase and rely heavily on computers and smartphones for spell checking.

Monday, July 9, 2012

I posted back on Day 9 a photograph of the wonderful shade trees that line our street. In the last week these glorious trees (Sycamore) have dumped countless leaves, bark, and dead branches in my yard, roof, porch, and sidewalk. I would love to remove these trees and replant "cleaner" trees. My yard should not look like this until October. Our cute little town of Oakmont has rules and I am unable to just remove them or I would. I wish the Shade Tree Commission would work with me on this, but they will not.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Harper had a rough day today. We went outside in the morning and she lost a battle with the concrete driveway. See exhibit face and elbow. Then prior to lunch she managed to get her index fingers (yes both) caught in the slider part of the garbage drawer. See exhibit finger. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

We had some friends and their kids over for dinner. After dinner I was able to snag a picture of Kit. I love the Bumsted combination of bright blue eyes and blonde hair. Check out her sister Annie here here. I snapped the photo of Annie when we went to Bermuda a couple years back.

Last night we went to see some fireworks. This was the first time for us at this location and I was hoping to get some good shots of the fireworks. Unfortunately, our location was not ideal for photos of the fireworks. This photo is during the time we had to wait for the fireworks while I was messing around with some time lapse photography.

Yesterday we went to Wheeling for mom's surprise 60th birthday party. So most of my family was around for me to photograph. This is Hunter, my nephew. I was able to corner him on the side of the house while he was playing and he let me take a few shots.